Birthday Time

                                                      Roger and Gayle somewhere in Portugal  

I woke up the other morning thinking about my oncoming birthday. Who wants to be 85? Just saying the number gave me the shivers. But lying there my thoughts took a different direction. I began to think of every church I ever had. I remembered a couple of people in every  congregation. I was amazed when I look back at the people that blessed my life there and often made it bearable.  The list is seemingly endless.

 I counted faces like rosary beads. Touching every bead of memory and my heart swelled as I remembered. But those beads did not stop with people in churches. For after my family of Gayle and Leslie and Matthew and my parents and my brother I remembered so many. 

I writer named Arthur Schopenhauer has written a book called The Ages of Life, One sentence struck me, “In our early days we fancy that the leading events of our lives, and the persons who are going to play an important part in it, will make their entrance to the sound of drums and trumpets, but when, in old age, we look back, we find that they all came in quite quietly, slipped in, as it were, by the side door, almost unnoticed.”

As I sat there in that little four room house where we lived across from the mill—I wondered what it would be like to grow up. What would I do? Never realizing back there that there would be a multitude that would cheer me on and open doors that i never even knew existed. They would love and affirm me and say, as my wife continually said, “It’s gonna be all right.” I never thought I would go to college or Seminary or summers at Princeton and Octobers in Oxford. Or that I would have six churches and eight Interims after I retired. How could I even envision back there that there would be books and books and stained glass windows that would let the light in and mentors and friends and my beloved family that kept me going. 

I sit here today surrounded by memories galore. I have no idea where it went but I tip my hat as I fondle that rosary thankful to God for all those that slipped in quietly and changed my life. Some of them don’t even remember my name—but that does not matter. They taught me grace and faith and love and hope, always hope. 

I don’t mean to brag folks—but take your own rosary beads and sit in a corner somewhere and remember. God bless us one and all that every day may just be a birthday for every one of us.

                                                                      photo by Saint Joseph / flikr